In my Journal entry earlier this month, New heights of absurdity in Episcopalia, I wondered what Dr Redding’s bishop had to say about her outright heresy. I have long given up hoping that cases like hers are just an isolated example of straying from the Path, and so it was no real surprise to read later that her bishop, the Rt. Reverend Vincent Warner of Seattle, calls her declaration of being both a Christian and a Muslim to be exciting in terms of interfaith understanding.

Exciting? I often hear that word these days and am beginning to recognize it as one that postmodernists find so useful when they can no longer describe something in terms of truth and remain credible. In these exciting days when anything goes… everything mixes with everything else… and exciting new ideas capture the imagination… it is exciting to discover that the boundaries we thought existed need no longer reign us in. Our excitement knows no bounds!

Where Bible literacy has been abandoned, people are ill-prepared to recognize heresy and challenge the basis of it. Also, where people fail to use any skills of critical thinking, then again they do not recognize error. And beyond that some more, where there is ignorance of both the Bible and the essentials of critical thinking, deception has a very easy path.

To me there are glaringly obvious incompatible and irreconcilable beliefs being entertained when someone describes herself as both a Christian and a Muslim, to the extent that a well read and intelligent being is compartmentalizing and alternately denying basic facts to contain them simultaneously. But yet it doesn’t seem to be glaringly obvious to those who support this woman’s position, and I must therefore have grave doubts about either their understanding of, or their belief in, the propositional truths of Scripture …and that includes academics and supposedly learned theologians. It also brings me to question what is understood generally concerning critical thinking. Consider Aristotle and his law of non-contradiction…

“The theological beliefs are irreconcilable,” said Mahmoud Ayoub, professor of Islamic studies and comparative religion at Temple University in Philadelphia. Islam holds that God is one, unique, indivisible. “For Muslims to say Jesus is God would be blasphemy.”

Frank Spina, an Episcopal priest and also a professor of Old Testament and biblical theology at Seattle Pacific University, puts it bluntly. “I just do not think this sort of thing works,” he said. “I think you have to give up what is essential to Christianity to make the moves that she has done. The essence of Christianity was not that Jesus was a great rabbi or even a great prophet, but that he is the very incarnation of the God that created the world…. Christianity stands or falls on who Jesus is.”
Source

Surely it is obvious that “Jesus is not God” (Muslim) and “Jesus is God” (Christian) does not work together? Are people not able to see that? Has postmodernism blinded folk that much?

But moving on a little…

This pluralism has sneaked in through the gate opened by the liberal theologians. It seems it is not uncommon these days to find clergy who are open to the beliefs of other faiths and ready to make claim for themselves to a mix of Christianity and other. It is in open defiance of our Christian God, but as Bishop Warner of Seattle is purported to have said… it is exciting in terms of interfaith understanding. Pluralism is certainly not possible if one holds to a traditional Biblical faith where a plain reading of Scripture does not involve interpretations bent towards a modern secular agenda. But liberal theology is not so much about Christian belief, but Christian unbelief instead.

Here is an interesting comment by Gerd Lüdemann, a prominent German theologian and Professor of New Testament at the University of Göttingen, Germany - as reported by Dr Albert Mohler Jr, here:

{clip} Many church officials, Lüdemann claims, no longer believe in the creeds, but simply “interpret” the words into meaninglessness. Liberal theologians, he asserts, try to reformulate Christian doctrine into something they can believe, and still claim to be Christians. He now describes liberal theology as “contemptible.”

Looking back on the whole project of liberal theology, Lüdemann offered an amazing reflection: “I don’t think Christians know what they mean when they proclaim Jesus as Lord of the world. That is a massive claim. If you took that seriously, you would probably have to be a fundamentalist. If you can’t be a fundamentalist, then you should give up Christianity for the sake of honesty.”

Professor Lüdemann reveals much about the true state of modern liberal theology. One core doctrine after another has fallen by liberal denial—all in the name of salvaging the faith in the modern age. The game is now reaching its end stage. Having denied virtually every essential doctrine, the liberals are holding an empty bag. As Lüdemann suggests, they should give up their claim on Christianity for the sake of honesty.

Lüdemann himself is a non-believer, having become “post-Christian”. But interestingly, personal unbelief and honesty has not yet given him the inclination to step down from his positions of employment. He has given up his claim on Christianity by no longer calling himself one, but he remains a Professor of New Testament at the University of Göttingen, Germany, and a teacher of those who will study under him, supposedly students with a mind to one day becoming ordained Christian clergy.

Unless holding a mirror in place and looking at the reflected image, it is not expected that we can look full on at one side of something and simultaneously see the opposite side of it. We can gaze at the full moon and see one half of the sphere, but while we do not see the other side of it, we do know logically that it must exist.

Today we are living in an age where naturalism is in ascendancy, and the belief of earlier ages in supernaturalism has declined. But to those of us holding a coherent Biblical Christian worldview, there are both these two elements - just like the front that is seen and the back that is unseen - that exist together. The visible and the invisible are present together, intimately connected to each other. Our physical senses can bring us objective knowledge of what exists, but they do not readily verify what appears not to exist - or what does exist but is outside perception by our physical senses.

Does this mean that the unseen world does not exist? Of course it doesn’t. You may not agree with me, but take one simple example where our common sense tells us that there is a back of the moon, an unseen half of the sphere. Or just as we know that, whereas our eye cannot see viruses, they can be detected by an electron microscope. Should we be able to travel back in time and tell first century man about radio waves, microwaves, x-rays, and all the rest of these invisible phenomena, he would be calling us the supernaturalists - and were he a naturalist, to him we would be the crazy believers and out of our heads.

The naturalist believes strongly in the existence of the physical world to the exclusion of a supernatural one, considering unprovable the existence of a spiritual world where spiritual beings and activity exists. So be it. However, the Christian worldview presupposes existence of this spiritual world, one where much is unseen and is outside of our normal awareness. It is revealed to us by spiritual means, by prayer, by fellowship with God, by His teachings from Scripture. It is the new horizon that we have acquired in accepting that we are more than mere mortals, that we have souls that persist into eternity long after our physical beings have perished. To the secular and unbelieving naturalist this is just silly nonsense. Because he cannot see the unseen, he readily declares it doesn’t exist and scoffs at the Christian whose horizon has thus extended well beyond his own.

This invisible world features persistently in the New Testament. God is spirit and dwells in the spiritual realm, but has a wide-reaching involvement in our physical realm, even to the extent of the incarnation of Christ, His miracles, the Transfiguration, the Resurrection, the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, the event of Pentecost, the meeting of Paul with Jesus on the road to Damascus… to name but a few.
The Apostle Paul tells us…

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 6:12)

There is the recognition of an invisible world that exists beyond that of our physical one, and the battle for our souls rages there as much as it does in this physical world in which we live. It might well be unnerving to realize this, but all that happens - all that we think and do - is not quite as private as supposed by the naturalist. With the coexistence of the invisible spiritual world, consider this:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
(Hebrews 12:1)

The emphasis throughout Scripture is not that this spiritual or supernatural realm is far away, but that it is right here, very close indeed, and present with us now.

The content of Judah’s Journal is copyright. If you are NOT reading this on Judah’s Journal, then it has been copied from there and is re-published illegally - in other words, stolen. Those who would do that are common thieves and lack moral integrity. Judah’s Journal

As a teenager I was intrigued by the idea of another world that co-existed with the one I already knew. Perhaps that would explain the phenomena of ghosts? Perhaps I enter that world in my sleep, and when I dream dreams? And well before I came to know what was written in the Bible, I put those quandaries into verse…

Reality

Have you ever thought perchance
That life is just a life-long trance;
You’re sleeping in some crazy dream
And not awake as it may seem?

Perhaps the world you know as real,
And everything you think and feel,
Is mythopaeic, nothing more?
Of what you know, can you be sure?

If doubts arise then question this
That answers may not go amiss,
And consider then what sleep might be
When dreams of other worlds tease thee.

© Judah, 2007

I am almost at a loss for words. Of all the saddest things to come out of the Anglican Communion of late, the following story is more than enough to make one weep. When the truth claims of Christianity are disregarded to the extent that sound doctrine is swept right away by whatever silly notion and whim takes the fancy, then I guess anything can be believed. And so the Rev. Dr. Ann Holmes Redding, a scholar in New Testament, can tell us that she is both a practising Muslim and an Episcopal priest. The content of Judah’s Journal is copyright. If you are NOT reading this on Judah’s Journal, then it has been copied from there and is re-published illegally - in other words, stolen. Those who would do that are common thieves and lack moral integrity. Judah’s Journal The June 2007 issue of the Episcopal Voice carries the story on page 9, and it is now appearing on numerous other Christian blogs such as this one here.

To quote the Rev. Dr. Ann Holmes Redding:

“We Christians, in struggling to express the beauty and dignity of Jesus and the pattern of life he offers, describe him as the ‘only begotten son of God.' That's how wonderful he is to us. But that is not literal,” she [Redding] continues. “When we say Jesus is the only begotten one, we are saying he's unique in some way. Islam says the same thing. He's the only human aside from Adam who is directly created by God, and he's different from Adam because he has a human mother. So there's agreement—this person is unique in his relationship to God.” Christianity also says that we are all part of the household of God and in essence brothers and sisters of Jesus. Muslims take the figurative language of “only begotten,” make it concrete and contradict it: God “neither begets nor is begotten.” “I agree with both because I do want to say that Jesus is unique, and for me, Jesus is my spiritual master,” Redding says. “Muslims say Mohammed is the most perfect. Well, it depends on who you fall in love with. I fell in love with Jesus a long time ago and I'm still in love with Jesus but I'd like to think my relationship with Jesus has matured.”

When we say that Jesus is the only begotten son of God, we are saying He is unique but not simply just “in some way”. We actually know in what way. It is in the way that He is of the same substance as the Father, our Creator God. And being of the same substance He is indeed God - God, the Son; second Person of our three-in-one Godhead. (John 10:30 “I and the Father are one.”) Not to acknowledge this uniqueness in this way is not to believe the truth claims of Christ.

What is more, it is not we who “struggling to express the beauty and dignity of Jesus” have coined the term “only begotten son of God” in our supposed struggle, but He is called that in Scripture which is God’s holy written word, the revelation of God Himself, because He is indeed that - as God has revealed! (Matthew 16:15-17 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.”)

Christianity does not say that we are all in essence brothers and sisters of Jesus, but only those who believe in Jesus as the Son of God are the children of God. (John 1:12,13 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. )

The Qu’ranic description of Allah is something quite different from the Biblical revelation of Yahweh. Pope Benedict found himself in hot water last year as a result of his lecture at Regensburg when he described how Christianity’s view is that God is intrinsically linked to reason (the Greek concept of logos) whereas Islam’s view is that “God is absolutely transcendent.” He appeared to be saying that either the Islamic interpretation of God must be in error when used to justify patently irrational violence as divine, or else the god the Muslims worship is not God. The submission of man's rationality to irrational violent commands, Pope Benedict dared to suggest, is incompatible with who God must be. The Muslims, who insist that their Allah is the God of Abraham, were incensed and turned up the heat in their attempt to cook the Pope like a live lobster in a pot.

Furthermore, Muslims deny the deity of Jesus. To them He is just a prophet, the one they call ‘Isa. And the Qu’ranic accounts of their ‘Isa have significant contradictory differences (such as His crucifixion and resurrection which they deny, that He was begotten and not created - that is, being the Word through whom all Creation came into being) from the Gospel accounts of Christ. Unlike Yahweh, the Islamic Allah is not a father - he has no son.

Dr Redding believes that Jesus led her to Islam. Quoting from the interview with her…

She added that what Islam does is take Jesus out of the way of her relationship with God, “but it doesn't drop Jesus. I was following Jesus and he led me into Islam, and he didn't drop me off at the door. He's there, too.”

Yes, Islam does take Jesus out of the way of her relationship with God, and it does even more besides. Without Jesus and His redemption that restores our relationship to God, we are lost and no longer the children of God. (1 John 2:23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.) This is about the Sonship of Jesus, His unique relationship to the Father (”…of one Being with the Father through whom all things were made…” Nicene Creed) and our acknowledgement of His deity as part of the Godhead.

Jesus made an exclusive claim (John 14:6 “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”) and to suggest that He leads anyone to worship a false god, one that denies His deity and all that He did on the cross for our redemption, is quite staggering to me. I can only surmise that Dr Redding has been well and truly deceived by the Father of Lies, and in losing sight of the real Jesus, has followed Satan, the evil one, instead.

One simply cannot be both a Muslim and a Christian. Each requires incompatible allegiances. Their truth claims are contradictory and mutually exclusive. Both cannot be right together, and to claim to believe in both requires a dissociative mental state. Dr Redding has sought synergy rather than salvation, and in attempting to be a believer of both, she has become a true believer of neither.

The questions to be asked next: What is this woman doing being allowed to remain a priest in the Episcopal Church? Where is her bishop, and what is he saying about her outright heresy? If there was any reason to be defrocked, this is surely a big one. Oh, wait, the Episcopal Church has veered right off course, creating it’s own liberal revisionist religion. It really is the saddest thing about the Anglican Communion.